Maybe, but you are forgetting that all of the old tanks were not always old. At one time my tank was one day old. I had more problems than everyone on here put together but in my defense, no one knew anything about salt water fish. If I were to start a new tank now (God Forbid) after having made all the mistakes and even invented a few, I "think" I could do it better.No, I agree. The only plausible explanation that makes sense to me is the "reduced propagule" theorem: some mature tanks have developed predatory biota that keep levels of parasites at a very low level.
Even in those prehistory days it only took me 5 or 6 years to figure it out.
I did say I "think" because I have not started a tank in decades. I don't know what happened to the thousands of tanks that have been started when the hobby started because it seems the only one left is mine. Maybe everyone from those days died. I don't know but I am old.
The hobby has been in the US for 50 years and yet the disease forums are thriving with the same diseases we had half a century ago, maybe worse, and no, the fish are not sicker now.
I still see that silly Burgess Axelrod and that other guy study from 40 years ago about the lifespan of parasites. That was very interesting and I remember when they came out with it.` I also thought it was a waste of time then.
Now we are involved in a pandemic from a virus. I personally don't care what the lifespan of the virus is or if temperature affects it. That knowledge is not going to make me safe from it as long as I know not to stand near someone who has it or touch them. (which we still don't know if that does anything)
But in any case we "know" (hopefully) that we can prevent it by getting a shot, "or" being exposed to the virus which will give us antibodies to it.
If we were fish, that virus would have been circulating in the sea with us since time began and we would have built up an immunity to it.
We have no immunity to Covid because it was just "invented," designed," fabricated" or transferred from some kind of livestock. But however it got here, we didn't have immunity because no one was exposed to it.
Fish in the sea are exposed to everything because the sea is well mixed so a fish would have some kind of immunity from ich, velvet, flukes and even intestinal worms.
By quarantining for an "extended" amount of time, a time frame we don't know and probably changes with the fish species and parasite species, we are weakening the fishes immune system as we all know, or should know, we need to be exposed and occasionally keep being exposed to stay immune.
Everybody in Europe didn't die from Smallpox, but almost all the Native Americans who were exposed did. Europeans had an immunity because everyone in Europe had some exposure to the disease and that exposure happened constantly. I am sure the Europeans who lived in filthy conditions and didn't have healthy food died.
I am proposing that in a fish tank there needs to be living parasites and harmful bacteria to keep everyone immune.
That concept is so foreign to almost everyone that no one is willing to set up a tank and have pathogens in it. But a tank with no pathogens, not even if the Pope himself or Jacques Cousteau started it will "always" have disease problems. Always. There can't be a tank in existence that is so sterile that no disease organism is going to get in there. (unless you want to constantly take out the fish to medicate)
If you buy anything live, even a snail or copepod there is an opportunity for infection which is why there are absolutely no tanks that were quarantined or medicated still around from many years ago. It is all but impossible.
In such a tank you can't feed live food or even fresh food as something like a clam from a supermarket is full of parasites and bacteria.
So Brandon, no one would be willing to start up an immune tank because it is outside the box and the disease forum is so well visited that these days, unfortunately, fish with disease is the norm.
I myself am to old, and to busy taking care of my wife to start a new tank and if someone were willing to do it, it would take years for it to become a very healthy, thriving tank no matter what they did.
But if we look at statistics, the only "old" healthy tanks I know of were not medicated or quarantined for an extended time and none of them are existing for a long time in a state where fish are added, they are spawning and dying of old age.
As you know I have been asking for decades for even one tank that was quarantined, and the fish were placed in a tank where everything is quarantined or medicated. Such a tank where there are no living pathogens. That tank does not exist.
People always ask me for scientific studies. There are no long term scientific studies because who would pay to keep ornamental fish healthy?
A long term study is hobbyists like ourselves who can do this. Just look at the statistics.
This hobby is now so full of things like Roaphas, GFO, Chemi Clean, Prizapro and carbon that it makes my head spin. I don't even know what most of that stuff is but I do know it is not natural.
Fish just need natural like in the sea and they will be fine. A tank to me should be a living, sustainable eco system that goes on forever with no problems.
Maybe it's me. OK I am finished.